Sound level meter beside a bound report and site drawings on a desk

Expert Witness & Appeals

Acoustic expert witness: evidence, not advocacy.

Independent acoustic evidence for planning appeals, hearings, inquiries and litigation, written to be relied on.

Fixed fee agreed up front · Quote back the same working day

The service

What it is, and when you need it.

An expert's duty is to the tribunal, not to whoever is paying. That is uncomfortable to say in a sales page, and it is the entire reason the evidence is worth anything.

A refusal you intend to appeal

Where noise was a reason for refusal, or where the officer's report relied on an acoustic argument you think is wrong.

An assessment that does not look right

Independent review of someone else's report, identifying whether its method and conclusions actually hold.

A statutory nuisance or abatement notice

Measurement and evidence for proceedings, whether you are defending a notice or seeking to establish that a nuisance exists.

A licensing hearing or review

Independent acoustic evidence where a premises licence is contested or under review.

What you get

What the fee covers.

One fee, fixed before anything starts. Everything listed here is inside it.

Written to

BS 4142:2014+A1:2019
BS 8233:2014
Environmental Protection Act 1990
Institute of Acoustics

Independent survey and assessment designed for the proceedings from the outset, not retrofitted to them
Written evidence in the form the tribunal requires, with method, assumptions and limitations stated in full
Review of the opposing assessment, setting out specifically where and why it departs from the standard
Attendance at hearing or inquiry, and cross-examination
A straight view on the merits before you commit, including when the answer is that your position is weak
Fixed fee agreed up front for the assessment stage

In detail

What an expert actually owes you
Where assessments usually fall down
Design the survey for the proceedings

What an expert actually owes you

An expert witness owes an overriding duty to the court or tribunal, which sits above any duty to the client instructing them. In practice that means the evidence has to say what the measurements show, including the parts that are unhelpful. Experts who forget this are visible from a long way off and take their client's case down with them.

The practical consequence for you is that our first output is usually an honest opinion on whether the case is worth running. Where the acoustic position is weak we will say so at the point when it is still cheap to hear it, which is before an appeal is lodged rather than after a hearing has gone badly.

Where assessments usually fall down

Reviewing other people's work is a large part of this. The failures repeat: a background sound level measured over too short a period or during the wrong one; the dominant source excluded from the assessment without any reason given; no character corrections applied to plant that is audibly tonal; a receptor position taken from a site plan rather than from the actual worst-affected window; and manufacturer sound power data used without regard to how the plant is actually installed.

None of these are exotic. They are the ordinary ways an assessment goes wrong, and each is straightforward to demonstrate if the survey supporting your case is designed to demonstrate it.

Design the survey for the proceedings

The single most useful thing a client can do is tell us at the outset that a matter may end up contested. A survey designed for that purpose is not more expensive, but it is different: longer measurement periods, audio recording so individual events can be identified rather than argued about, calibration verified either side of the deployment, and a method record complete enough to satisfy someone actively looking for a gap in it.

Retrofitting that rigour to a survey already carried out for another purpose is rarely possible, and its absence is the first thing an opposing expert will look for.

Questions

Asked often.

Can you review an assessment produced by another consultant?

Yes, and it is a large part of this work. We review the method, the measurement periods, the source terms, the receptor positions and whether the dominant source was assessed at all, then set out specifically where the report departs from the standard it claims to follow.

Will you support our case whatever the measurements show?

No. An expert's duty is to the tribunal, and evidence shaped to a client's preference is worthless the moment it is tested. What we will do is tell you early and plainly what the acoustic position is, so you can decide how to proceed while that decision is still cheap.

Do you act for residents and objectors as well as developers?

Yes. We have carried out independent survey work for a residents' action group, and the discipline is identical either way: measure properly, assess against the applicable standard, and report what it shows.

How much does expert evidence cost?

The assessment stage is a fixed fee quoted against the scope, as with all our work. Hearing and inquiry attendance is quoted separately once the timetable is known, because it depends on the length and format of the proceedings rather than on anything we control.

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